25.10.2024 - Newsletter
New School timings from January
After being at Ravenswood for half a term, I’ve been working with all school staff members to learn about what makes Ravenswood special and then look to see if there’s anything we can do to improve things further.
There are many wonderful things about Ravenswood, the children being at the forefront. Despite our school being so large, I very much know what all of the staff have meant when using the term ‘the Ravenswood family’. The staff care so much about the children and put so much effort into supporting them and putting on exciting lessons and extra curriculuar clubs. I’ve been blown away by the phenomenal singing in assemblies and it’s been nice to be able to share these things with you via the school app and social media.
However, there are also ways to improve moving forward. One thing I’ve noticed in the mornings, particularly with the EYFS and KS1 side of school, is that getting all children into school to begin learning at 9am is very challenging.
There are a lot of children and classes to get into school all at the same time, which at times can lead to a bit of a bottleneck in areas outside and inside the school. Teachers have the challenge of trying to get children into the classroom, complete school and dinner registration, put packed lunches away and begin learning and it often feels like an enormous rush. This can be harder still for children with additional needs who would benefit from more time to settle into learning. There are also a lot of children who come to school late who miss the small window of getting into class.
One way to alleviate all of the above issues, is for our school to have a ‘soft start’ with a 15 minute window for children to enter school.
From January 2025, we will have new school timings:
Year Group |
Drop off |
Pick up |
Nursery |
9:00am – 9:15am |
3:00pm collection |
Reception Year 1 Year 2 |
8:45am – 9:00am
|
3:15pm collection |
Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 |
8:40am - 8:55am
|
3:10pm collection |
Parents will have a 15 minute window to be able to drop children off in the morning, meaning that teachers then have longer to register, settle children into a calming morning activity before then starting further lessons at 9am. We have staggered exit times between KS2 and KS1/Reception classes so that parents who have children in both key stages have time to be able to collect children.
By changing the school day to these times, we are then further supporting children in KS2 for transition as Jesmond Park Academy as at this school, the latest time that children can arrive is 8:25am with lessons finishing at 2:45pm.
I know that changing the school day can have an enormous impact for parents. We haven’t taken this decision lightly. We have consulted with wraparound care providers for Ravenswood. It’s also why I’m wanting to communicate the changes that will take place from January as early as possible to give parents more than 10 weeks notice of a future change.
Further information about how exactly the soft start will work for each year group will be given next half term.
House point winners
The year 6 children have been counting up all of the house points earned so far this half term.
Congratulations to the Red team who managed to get just over 1500 house points. As a reward, as I’ve been told is Ravenswood tradition, all children from this house will be able to come to school in non-uniform on Friday 8th November.